Sway, our brand new pit bull princess, has gone into heat. We've had her less than a week, and it's been increasingly frustrating trying to gauge her personality and take care of her when she has started shying away from us and leaving little red drops everywhere. She's a sweet girl, and this is only the second time she's been in heat, but I worry about her! Our neighbor dog is not fixed, and as he's HUGE (great Pyrenees/German shepherd mix) he can jump the fence easily. I don't know what to do to help her relax and get used to us, and what to do to protect my carpets from the mess, short of putting a diaper on her- and my husband will never let that happen!

supervise her in the yard and keep her on a leash, confine her to rooms with smooth floors while she's messy, without carpets? You can get female dog diapers as well. But ideally, why isn't she spayed?

If you don't have the knowledge to deal with a dog in heat, then you definitely shouldn't be breeding her, so spay her

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day, tomorrow doesn't look good either.
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"You didn't know of the magical powers of the break stick? It's up there with genies and Harry Potter as far as magic levels go." SisMorphine 01/07/07

Malli wrote:supervise her in the yard and keep her on a leash, confine her to rooms with smooth floors while she's messy, without carpets? You can get female dog diapers as well. But ideally, why isn't she spayed?

If you don't have the knowledge to deal with a dog in heat, then you definitely shouldn't be breeding her, so spay her

She has an appointment with the vet in the middle of January. It was actually the earliest I could get- I forgot to mention it in the original post. We have no desire to breed her, we just want her to calm down! She goes from hyper to shaking in the corner with the slightest word, it's crazy.

Yrdenal wrote:She has an appointment with the vet in the middle of January. It was actually the earliest I could get- I forgot to mention it in the original post. We have no desire to breed her, we just want her to calm down! She goes from hyper to shaking in the corner with the slightest word, it's crazy.

Yup, that's a dog in heat for ya.

Spaying during heat is more expensive, but if you call around you may find a place to do it. After her heat you have other things to deal with, false pregnancy, pyometra and other things. None of it's fun.

Michelle

Inside me is a thin woman trying to get out. I usually shut the bitch up with a martini.

Our little girl went into heat a few days after we took her in, too. We opted to wait until a month or so after the heat because, from what I understand (and I could certainly be wrong), there can be issues with excessive bleeding if spayed during heat; it can also affect the recovery time, hormonally speaking.

We put Huggies Little Swimmers on her-- they "pull up" and you can cut a little X for the tail. They're also a LOT cheaper than doggie diapers. She wasn't thrilled with them, but they did the trick. We always supervised her, and even on leash walks she wore the diaper-- just in case a stray dog was too quick for me, and to keep her odor tamped down a bit, so as not to attract more male dogs to our house.

"In these bodies, we will live; in these bodies we will die.Where you invest your love, you invest your life." --Marcus Mumford

I would look around for another place to spay her, providing that it's a vet you can trust (don't want to have a botched surgery, either). In the meantime, I would not let that dog away from my sight at any time when outdoors, and warn your neighbour (hopefully he's the cooperating kind) that you have a bitch in heat and no intention of creating pyrenees/pit bull crosses.

As far as the diapers go, I'd slap some on regardless of what your husband says. Or he can clean the carpets himself.